


The Woken Beauty

by Anonymous



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-21
Updated: 2009-10-21
Packaged: 2017-10-02 13:10:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which there is a sleeping princess, Jack Sparrow, and Bill Turner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Woken Beauty

**Author's Note:**

> An AU of [Berne](http://www.ragnell.org/berne)'s [Tale V: The Sleeping Beauty](http://www.ragnell.org/berne/easternglow/tentales.html#talev).

__

_Once upon a time in a faraway land there lived a princess. A thousand years she was said to have been locked away, a thousand years, and every knight and every noble who had fought their way through the tangled maze of bushes had vanished. The thorns were poisoned, some said; others claimed that there was a dragon; still others said that there was a curse upon the castle._

_Bill didn't know about all that, but he did wonder how he and Jack managed to stumble upon such things._

_Jack had decided to rescue the princess, ignoring Bill's protests that if what the locals said was true, then the girl would be over a thousand years old and nothing more than a skeleton. Jack, being Jack, had been adamant. And Bill, being Bill, had followed._

_Jack had been gone for nigh on an hour and Bill, quite expecting to be waiting for most of the day, almost shot Jack with his hastily cocked pistol when he came ambling back through the gorse._

_"Got her," Jack said, and so he had. The princess was draped over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, but when he placed her down onto the dry grass it was with the most extraordinary care. "She's quite pretty, really."_

_And she was at that. Bundled up in bright, shining silks, the princess had golden skin and golden hair piled on top of her head. Upon her feet was a pair of red slippers. She certainly didn't look a thousand years old—she couldn't have been more than twenty years—but she didn't look too lively, either._

_Bill helped Jack settle her on his discarded greatcoat. "That was quick."_

_Jack shrugged. "There was a dragon, see."_

_"Ah," said Bill._

_"Old Turpin was right."_

_Frowning, Bill peered down at the princess' still form. "I think she might be dead."_

_Jack knelt and put an ear to the girl's mouth. "She's breathing. Give her a kiss and she'll be right as rain."_

_Bill did—his scepticism of folktales had long since vanished—and felt a mortifying blush burn his cheeks._

When he drew back, her eyes were still shut, but she was smiling; Bill could see the tip of her tongue beyond her lips. He had never thought of princesses having tongues before, and found himself staring, until Jack shoved him.

"Call that a kiss?" he demanded. "I'm ashamed of you, Bill, my boy."

"You kiss her," Bill said, shoving back.

"I did my part. I got her out. Now it's your turn. 'Sides, she's not my type anyway."

"What's she lack?" Bill asked curiously. Jack had never had a type—perhaps an unnatural fondness for redheads, but Bill ascribed that more to Jack's unnatural fondness for shiny things and his affinity for anything cursed, as redheads were rumoured to be.

"Can't hit me," Jack explained, sitting back on his heels. "Go on, kiss her."

Bill groaned, but did as Jack insisted; he always did. This time, the princess kissed back, and he was so startled that he pulled away entirely, gasping.

"What?" Jack leaned forward, exasperated until he saw the expression on Bill's face, and then, hopefully, "Is she—"

Bill shrugged.

"Come on, darling," Jack murmured, brushing one filthy finger over the curve of her cheek. He sounded almost coaxing, as he did when fishing, charming the ocean and the currents. "Give us more than a smile, that's a love."

"What's this 'us'?" Bill demanded indignantly. "_I_ kissed her."

"True, true. She's all yours, William." Jack waved a hand, and Bill made a face. He was not as fond of the whorehouses as Jack was, and had refused to listen to some of the wilder stories of his friend's exploits. Piracy was one thing, smuggling was one thing, but giving women, like pretty jewelry, was quite another. "Won't lay a finger on her," Jack promised.

"Who knows what you did in there?" Bill pointed out.

"You wound me," Jack protested, clutching his throat and batting his lashes as if Bill were one of the tavern wenches, but Bill grinned at him.

"It's all right," he said. "I think we'd best let her wake on her own. Wouldn't do to shock her overmuch."

Jack nodded. "It's getting cold," he said. Trust Jack to notice that; he was a tropical creature at heart, all bright plumage and glittering colours.

"So build a fire," Bill said patiently, taking the princess's hands in his and chafing them. Jack was, after all, leaning at his ease against a tree-trunk, and he had plaited the grass beside him; it would do for kindling.

Jack grunted wordlessly as he stood and began to assemble a pile of small twigs; he had been at it for only a few moments when the princess actually stirred.

"Jack," Bill began, alarm sparking through him, and she opened her eyes. They were the brightest green he had ever seen, sharper than ice, and looking right at him.

"Hello," he said.

"Is she—" Jack demanded, before glimpsing her eyes. He promptly bowed theatrically, and Bill felt even more of a clumsy idiot than before. "At your service, my lady," he said, and Bill covered his eyes.

"Who are you?" she asked, looking from one to the other in confusion.

"We seem to have rescued you," Bill said, muffled through his hands, for it did seem true, now.

"Oh."

"What now?" Jack asked eagerly, crouching behind the little bonfire he had built up. "Any kingdoms we've to win back for you, or somesuch?" He looked as though he were emerging through a copper mirror, the flames coating his face in reds and golds, and the shadows dappling his skin.

The princess, Bill saw through his fingers, looked quite bewildered, and he took her hand again, urging her closer to the fire. "I—I don't know," she said, her brow creased. "They never told me what was supposed to happen after. I don't know if I'm supposed to fall in love with you, or if—" She looked quite distressed at the thought of not doing what she ought, and Jack laughed.

"Well, if it comes to that," he said cheerfully, and poked the fire, "you've a choice, see. I got you out, but he kissed you. So it's up to you."

"Jack," Bill said in an undertone.

"Well, 'cept that I've already ceded rights," Jack said hurriedly. "In a manner of speaking. It seems our dear William Turner is feeling a mite possessive."

"_Jack_," he said again, helplessly.

"Your name is William?" she asked. He nodded, knowing already that she would choose Jack if it came to that. "I like that name."

He felt a smile break across his face, and the princess smiled back.

She wasn't used to rough tramping, but neither of them realised it until her shoes, those blood-red slippers, had long since been torn to pieces, and her feet were wet and crimson.

They had slept that night by the fire, and Bill had woken to find the princess curled against him, huddled up against his side. At daybreak, when he had opened his eyes, this seemed perfectly natural—the air, after all, was damp and chill—and he threw another fold of his greatcoat over her and dozed off again.

It seemed a dream, when he woke properly; but Her Majestic Regal Splendid and Most Blessed Majesty Anne Cabrera Rodriguez y Tocqueville y Andreas y Perez blushed when he looked at her, and that was how he was sure it had happened.

"You all right there, Annie?" Jack said, kicking a trailing vine from the rough path.

They had decided to call her "Annie," over her strenuous objections, mostly because, as Jack said, 'by the time you got to the end, darling, I'd forgotten the beginning. Annie's a fine name, anyway.'

"I rather think I've cut my foot," she said, and Bill couldn't hold back a gasp when he saw the trail of blood she was leaving.

"Why didn't you say anything?" he demanded.

"I didn't know what to say," she admitted, and her eyes were the color of wet grass. She drew in a sharp breath when Bill's fingers encircled her ankle, but he was crouched next to her, and didn't see the expression on her face. Jack did.

"_Ouch_ would have done, for starters," Jack said.

She raised a brow. "Ouch," she said, her voice utterly composed, and Bill chuckled.

"Your shoes are..." he trailed off, and held out a strip of bright satin.

"Ruined," she said, and sighed—but didn't sound particularly sorry, to Bill's ear. "Excellent. I've been trying to get rid of these things ever since my last birthday."

Jack snickered. "Should've fed 'em to the dragon," he said. Annie glared at him.

"Don't think I didn't try," she said, and Jack stared at her. She smiled, clearly proud of herself for surprising Jack. "He's very picky about his food."

"He tried to _eat_ me!" Jack protested.

Annie tossed her head. "I'm not surprised," she said archly, "he's always had a taste for heroes."

"We're not—" Bill protested.

"Shut it, Bill," Jack said, and bent over, and scooped Annie up. "If you can't say 'ouch,'" he said mock-severely, "I suppose we'll have to keep you from being injured at all."

"I did say 'ouch'!" she protested, as they set off again, Bill trailing behind, wondering at the weight that had settled under his ribs. Jack paused to adjust Annie in his arms, and the small wooden beads he'd tied in his hair a few months before swung wildly.

"Ouch!" Annie yelped, clapping a hand to her eye.

Bill wasn't entirely sure why he was so pleased to see that Annie's hand was no longer on the back of Jack's neck. "Your _beads_," she said to Jack, still covering her eye. "Put me down this instant."

"You can't walk," Bill said, starting forward, "not with your feet all cut up, like." He blushed, realizing he was ordering a princess about (she was surely, surely older than him, too, he thought despairingly), and worse, talking about her _feet_.

"I have no intention of it, William," she said, and held out her hands.

He couldn't have said if she seemed feather-light, as a princess should, or if the curves and angles under his hands were all too solid and human. The ache in his back might have been from her weight or from trying to keep from leaning forward and kissing her.

It was hard to tell, sometimes, most of the time, if they were going anywhere or merely tramping in circles. Annie said she didn't know—"the land looks so different," she said wistfully, watching the sunset, which was a lemon-coloured rift in a bank of sooty stormclouds.

That night, Bill lay awake long after Annie's breathing had steadied into a constant whistling against his neck. He couldn't see the clouds overhead, but their weight was almost palpable. They had found shelter in the hole left in the ground where a great ash-tree had fallen over; the roots formed a twisting, knotted wall in front of them. "Ash is lucky," Jack had said, pressing his hands together prayerfully.

"Jack?" he whispered.

No reply.

"Jack?" he tried again.

"Mmm?" Bill waited until he glimpsed the gleam of Jack's eyes as he blinked muzzily. Jack never slept well on solid land ('always bloody _stays still_,' he grumbled), but he was always hard to pull from sleep. "Damn it, Bill," he mumbled, "I was dreaming."

"Redhead?" Bill asked, still whispering.

"No. Blonde," Jack muttered, flopping onto his back. He was on the other side of the fire's remains. "Long blonde hair and big brown eyes an' skin like those peaches we used to steal."

Annie stirred, her face pressing tighter against Bill's shoulder, and she sighed. "Long as it wasn't her," Bill muttered. He didn't mean for Jack to hear it, but Jack had a habit of deafness only when it pleased him.

"No worries, mate," Jack said. "Why'd you wake me? I liked that girl, quite a lot."

"What are we _doing_, Jack?"

"What d'you mean?"

"Jack, Annie's never been out of—wherever we are. She'll be lost enough if she stays here, where they at least know her legend. What'll she do in England?"

"What else can we do with her?" Jack asked, still whispering. "Would you leave her behind? Would you stay with her?"

Bill took a breath in and let it out slowly. "I won't leave you," he said.

"An' I won't leave the _Pearl_," Jack said flatly.

"Bloody hell," Bill muttered.

"Bill," Jack said, and his voice was soft. "What would happen if we left her behind?" He sighed. "What's for her here? She's a legend, Bill, and legends aren't supposed to—aren't supposed to _live_."

He could hear Jack stirring, but didn't answer for a moment. "Just doesn't seem right," he said. "No good choices here, Jack."

"All we can do," Jack told him. "You know that, Bill, the only rule, what a man can do, and what a man can't do."

"I know," Bill said, and he did. They had both long since learned that, ever since the time they had found the hermit in the desert, the time there was the sandstorm, and two horses the colour of cream with bridles made of smoke. He'd just never thought that his _can't_s might conflict someday.

But then, he'd never thought he'd rescue a princess, either.

Funny how things worked out, he thought, and blew a strand of Annie's hair out of his mouth, and fell asleep until the sun rose. It was hard to tell, the clouds were so heavy, but they plodded grimly on until the rain poured down and turned the world to mud as sticky as pitch, and near as dark.

Jack huddled into his coat, only the tips of his hair visible, and sulked; he took bad weather as a personal affront, and besides, he was cold.

"I know, Jack," Bill snapped at last. "You've bloody well told me enough!" Annie was nestled against his side, his clammy skin sharp with awareness of where she was touching him, and when she leaned forward, he grasped her shoulder. "You'll get wet," he said, and her eyes were as steady as emeralds. "Wetter?" he tried, and then her teeth flashed, pearl-white and pearl-perfect.

The girl was made up of jewels, he thought.

"Don't be an idiot, Jack," Annie said. "We'll be warmer if we all bunch together."

She was right, of course, but that didn't make it proper.

Bill's objections were overruled very quickly, and Jack began to stick his elbows, of which he suddenly seemed to have an inordinate number, into Bill's sides and stomach and neck. Bill tried to retaliate, but when Annie yelped, "Ouch!" he stopped, mumbling apologies.

They slept like that, and in the morning, Bill couldn't tell who was curled against his back and whom he was holding. When she woke, Annie washed her face in a puddle, and they trudged on, reaching the village Jack and Bill had originally set out from by nightfall.

In the tavern, they sat in the darkest corner, and didn't explain how they had acquired a girl, "and such a pretty one, too!" as the barmaid said. The proprietor came over, and offered Annie a place to stay, but she, quicker even than Jack or Bill, slapped the man.

"How dare he," she seethed, after Jack had bought the man a round to placate him, drumming her fingers on the table. Jack was charming the man and his fat wife, darting quick, nervous glances toward where Bill and Annie sat. "How _dare_ that odious little creature presume me—"

"Wait," Bill blurted. "He didn't mean just for tonight, did he." A slow burn of anger began to rise in his throat.

"No," she said.

Bill snarled once, inarticulately, and fumbled for his dagger, tucked into the top of his boot. Annie laid a hand on his arm, her eyes widening.

"What are you—" she began.

"No one," Bill said sharply, "insults my wife like that." Annie gasped, and Bill realized what he had said. "Er," he said, his hand stilling.

But Annie was smiling, her eyes wreathed in tiny creases, and her fingers twined with his. "Hardly a proper way of proposing, Señhor Turner."

"Bugger proper," Bill replied, repeating what Jack had said the night before in the rain. Annie laughed, and Bill felt the anger seep out of him—how could he be angry when Annie was happy and he had made her that way? How could the world be anything but perfect on such an occasion?

He kissed her, and she tasted like rainwater. Her mouth was cool under his and then suddenly softened, and she kissed him back. "William," she whispered, when he leaned away a fraction of an inch to catch his breath, and a thrill shot up his spine. She had chosen him, after all, and she loved him, and she was going to be his wife.

The _Pearl_ wasn't far from the town; the most perilous part of getting back to her was dodging an ox-drawn cart on the road by the cliffs next to the shore, and Jack sighed with satisfaction when they reached the docks.

"Ah," he said. "There's none like my _Pearl_, is there, Bill?"

"No," Bill agreed, twisting a smile that Jack couldn't see. "You'll love each other," he added to Annie, who was hanging back a little, looking dubious. She smiled uncertainly. He reached out and circled her wrist with his fingers, and he could feel her blood throbbing in her veins.

Annie was polite, of course—whatever else you could say of her, she had manners—and learned the crew's names quickly. They didn't mutter about the bad luck of having a woman aboard too loudly, and where she could hear them not at all, for which Bill was grateful.

They cast off as soon as they could, and once Jack had chosen a course, Bill dragged him to the fo'castle. "Make it up, Jack," he said warningly, when Jack had opened his mouth to protest.

"Dearly beloved," Annie supplied helpfully. "Start with that."

Jack had spluttered. "I'm the captain, damn it!"

Annie lifted her chin. "Captain Sparrow," she said grandly, "I will not have that kind of language at my wedding." Bill slid an arm around her waist—more to support himself than her; hearing her say 'wedding' was making him feel almost seasick, which was absurd, the sky was clear and the waves barely more than ruffles on the sea's surface.

Stickler hooted, from where he was perched in the sails.

"Oh, shut up," Jack grumbled. "Fine, I'll bloody well marry you." And he did.

"I'm not giving her my cabin," he said, once he'd gone through the hold and stroked and caressed the wheel and scrambled up the mainmast. He sounded like the sulky child he had never been, and Bill wondered briefly what would happen if—but Jack was a more immediate problem.

They were settled on the steps leading up to the tiller, watching the clouds drift across the sunset. Bill tipped his head back to look at Jack, whose chin was propped on his fist, sitting on the step above him. "I'm not having her sleep with the crew," he said mildly.

Jack snorted. "'Course not, William. I'm just sayin'. I'm not getting turned out of me own cabin. Don't fancy sleeping on the deck in a hurricane at all."

"And who said you had to leave the cabin?" Bill asked.

Jack's glance was as quick as a fish through water. "Won't have her sleep with you an' the crew, but you'll trust her with the man who tempts Tortuga's temptations?"

Bill glared.

"Oh," Jack said. They sat in silence, watching the last crimson rays of light disappear over the ocean. When it was almost full dark, and the wind had begun to chill, Annie drifted out of the shadows by the mizzenmast, and wriggled into the space between Bill's knees.

"Bed?" she suggested, softly, her voice almost indistinguishable from the lap of water against the hull. Her head rested on Bill's thigh, and he reached down to comb his fingers through her hair.

Jack coughed. "Annie," he said, and his voice was hoarse. "Not that I'm not—I mean, any man would dream of—"

"I have had," she said, "quite enough of dreams, Jack."

"S'pose you have," he said.

"I never dreamed of this," Annie said, standing and tugging Bill to his feet. "This is real."


End file.
